Microsoft opens "Office Live Workspace" pre-registration

As of today, Microsoft is taking pre-registrations for "Office Live Workspace," their answer to Google Docs. Only a limited number of pre-registrants will be allowed into the first group.

As opposed to "Office Live Small Business," which centers around site creation tools, Office Live Workspace will allow you to work with your Microsoft Office documents online. You will be able to store over 1000 Microsoft Office documents, access them via a browser, and control access to your workspace by invitation.

The biggest difference between Google Docs and Office Live Workspace: you cannot edit files within the browser. You'll use the already-installed Microsoft Office on your hard drive to edit files. Once edited, the user can upload the file to the workspace, synchronizing the changes between the online and PC copies.

In a way, this isn't really different than uploading files to a shared file repository like Xdrive --- you can share files there as well, and specify who can access them. The real question is: will Microsoft expand the service in the future to allow editing within the browser?

If you'd like to pre-register, go to this pre-registration page. Good luck, since as we said, space is limited in the initial rollout.